The Center for Progressive Reform works to protect and improve the quality of public debate on environmental, health and safety issues by promoting a sound regulatory process. Toward that end, CPR scholars file comments with regulatory agencies, testify before congressional committees, publish opinion articles, and prepare white papers and reports. These products build on the academic scholarship and research conducted by CPR scholars.

Recent CPR work on the environment includes:

• Next Generation Environmental Initiative
  
  In 2006, the Center for Progressive Reform launched its Next Generation Environmental Initiative to develop ideas and resources for Congress as it takes up the important business of rebuilding the nation’s environmental protection efforts after several years of neglect. Most of the nation’s current environmental laws were crafted before some of today’s principle environmental challenges were even contemplated – global warming and endocrine disruptors, for example. The Next Generation Environmental Initiative will help lawmakers renew existing environmental statutes, and develop tightly focused laws to address more recently recognized environmental problems.
  
  
  • In April 2007, CPR issued CPR for the Environment, the first of two publications from the organization’s Next Generation Environmental Initiative. The report offers ideas for a tune-up of the nation’s existing statutes, suggesting specific revisions to specific existing statutes. It was written with leadership from CPR board member Alyson Flournoy, and contributions from scholars William L. Andreen, Mary Jane Angelo, John S. Applegate, Victor B. Flatt, William Funk, Joel A. Mintz, Clifford Rechtschaffen, Sidney Shapiro, Rena Steinzor, Wendy E. Wagner and staff member Margaret Clune Giblin.
    
    
• Global Warming
  
  Few issues pose as severe a threat to the planet as global warming. CPR scholarship on the issue includes:
  
  
  • Read William W. Buzbee's December 28, 2007 op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the Bush EPA's denial of California's request for a Clean Air Act waiver that would allow it and 16 "piggybacking" states to fight global warming with stricter automobile emissions standards.
    
    
  • See the media advisory and agenda for "Facts, Ideas, and U.S. Climate Change Policy: A Conference on Climate Change," an October 20, 2007 conference sponsored jointly by CPR, the University of Kansas School of Law, and the Commons at the University of Kansas.
    
    
  • Read "Hot Air," Eban Goodstein's review of Bjorn Lomborg's Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming, published on Slate.com, August 29, 2007. For another look at the quality of Lomborg's scholarship, read Joel Mintz's review, published in The Environmental Lawyer, in 2002, of Lomborg's earlier book, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. (Reprinted by permission of the American Bar Association.) Or read Frank Ackerman's 2002 review of Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, in the March 25, 2002 edition of The Nation.
  
  
  
• EPA's Poor Enforcement Record
  
  Good laws and strong regulations can be rendered impotent by listless enforcement. That's the case with the Bush Administration's lackluster enforcement of environmental protections.
  
  
  • Read "Toxic Disclosure Should be Expanded, Not Scaled Back," on EPA's efforts to undercut the Toxic Release Inventory, by Clifford Rechtschaffen, published on the Center for American Progress website on December 18, 2006.
    
    
  • Read CPR's John Applegate's innovative proposals for addressing the difficult problem of the significant gaps in what EPA knows about the dangers of chemicals now being used in commerce. Closing Data Gaps Or read the news release.
    
    
  • Read Rena Steinzor, Katherine Baer, and Matt Shudtz's white paper on the significant gaps in what EPA knows about the dangers of chemicals now on the market and in common use, gaps reflected in EPA.s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), arguably the world's most prominent toxicological database. Overcoming Environmental Data Gaps: Why What EPA Doesn't Know about Toxic Chemicals Can Hurt.
    
    
  • Read CPR's Tom McGarity's November 10, 2005 testimony to Congress on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
    
    
  • Read "Maryland Water Standards a Quarter Century Late and Counting," by Rena Steinzor, published December 15, 2004 on the Center for American Progress website.
    
    
  • Read "States Fail to Ensure Water Quality," by Clifford Rechtschaffen, published November 17, 2004 on the Center for American Progress website.
    
    
  • CPR Member Scholar Clifford Rechtschaffen's "Enforcing the Clean Water Act in the Twenty-First Century: Harnessing the Power of the Public Spotlight," examining state budget and staff shortages for Clean Water Act enforcement.
    
    
  • Environmental Law Review article by Joel Mintz on the EPA's failed record of enforcement, posted by permission.
    
    
  • Testimony by Rena Steinzor on the Bush EPA's poor enforcement record, September 16, 2003.
    
    
  • News release on Rena Steinzor's September 16, 2003 testimony.
  
  
  
• Pollution from the Houston Petrochemical Complex
  
  The Houston Petrochemical Complex churns out pollution that endangers public health, and in particular, threatens the health of nearby residents.
  
  
  • Read CPR's September 2006 report, "Man-Made Disaster: Texas’s Failure to Protect Its Citizens from the Perils of the Houston Petrochemical Complex," by Thomas O. McGarity and Karen Sokol. The "Executive Summary to Man-Made Disaster." "Informe Ejecutivo: Un desastre provocado por el hombre: Falta de Texas en Proteger a sus Ciudadanos Contra los Peligros del Complejo Petroquímico de Houston."
    
    
  • In October 2007, CPR President Thomas McGarity discussed the hazards of petrochemical pollutants in Houston on a CNN documentary special, "Planet in Peril." Watch the video on CNN’s website, here: www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/18/poor.environment/#cnnSTCVideo. Or read the related news story on CNN’s website: www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/18/poor.environment/.
    
    
  • Read the news release for "Man-Made Disaster."
    
    
  • Read two op-eds from Victor Flatt on the subject, in The Houston Chronicle, "Houston: Just say 'yes' to clean air," published December 2, 2006, and "City's got right to enact law on air," published February 4, 2007.
  
  
  
• Superfund
  
  Congress created the Superfund program to drive the cleanup of more than 1,000 sites across the nation that have been polluted with toxic wastes. But after the Gingrich Revolution, Congress let lapse the principal funding mechanism -- a tax on the industries whose toxic pollution poisoned the sites. Predictably, cleanups have slowed to a crawl.
  
  
  • On October 17, 2007 Rena Steinzor testified before the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Steinzor charged that the Administration and polluters had "dragged their feet" on Superfund cleanups, and called for the reinstatement of the "polluter pays" tax. Read her testimony, or the news release about it.
    
    
  • Read The Toll of Superfund Neglect: Toxic Waste Dumps & Communities at Risk, a joint report from CPR and the Center for American Progress, co-authored by CPR's Rena Steinzor and Margaret Clune, looking at who in the ten most populous states is affected by the slowdown in Superfund cleanups. Read the news release.
    
    
  • Read op-eds on Superfund by CPR's Rena Steinzor and the Center for American Progress's Reece Rushing: "Bush administration remiss in toxic waste cleanup," published in the July 30, 2006 Buffalo News, "Hazardous Conditions: Oil and Chemical Industries Should Pay to Clean Up their Messes," published July 12, 2005 in the Austin American-Statesman, "Industry Tax Breaks Have Stalled Superfund Cleanup," published July 3, 2005 in the Allentown Morning Call and "Failure to Clean Up Toxic Dumps Leaves Residents at Risk," published July 3, 2005 in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
  
  
  
• Pollution Trading Programs
  
  Proposals to allow firms to trade entitlements to engage in a wide variety of potentially harmful activity, such as emitting air pollutants that contribute to acid rain, or including quantities of lead in gasoline, or releasing mercury into water systems, or releasing greenhouse gases have become increasingly popular in public policy discussions. CPR takes a cautious view toward such trading proposals. It believes that properly designed trading programs can be constructive additions to the regulatory toolkit. Often, however, a greater emphasis needs to be placed on the importance of proper design in order to ensure that trading programs promote and achieve serious and real improvements in environmental quality. (See the CPR Perspective on Emissions Trading). CPR's commentary on emissions trading programs includes
  
  
  • Read Catherine O'Neill's January 3, 2005 comments on EPA's proposed mercury pollution trading credit scheme.
    
    
  • Read Catherine O'Neill's white paper on the mercury pollution hot spots that would result from the Bush Administration's proposed cap-and-trade approach, and how it will affect minority communities.
    
    
  • Testimony by Rena Steinzor on water quality trading programs
    
    
  • January 13, 2003 Op-Ed on Trading Program for Mercury in the Daytona Beach News-Journal by Rena Steinzor
    
    
• Environmental Justice.
  
  Pollution and its health effects disproportionately injure minorities. CPR's work on this environmental justice includes:
  
  
  • Read CPR's White Paper, "Environmental Justice," by Eileen Gauna, Catherine A. O’Neill, and Clifford Rechtschaffen.
    
    
  • Read Catherine O'Neill's description of the impact of the Administration's mercury cap-and-trade scheme on Native Americans in the Great Lakes region.
    
    
  • Read CPR's Perspective on Environmental Justice.
    
    
• The Clean Air Act.
  
  
  • Read William W. Buzbee's December 28, 2007 op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the Bush EPA's denial of California's request for a Clean Air Act waiver that would allow it and 16 "piggybacking" states to fight global warming with stricter automobile emissions standards.
    
    
  • Listen to CPR's Frank Ackerman debate global warming with Heritage Foundation scholar Ben Lieberman on "Kresta in the Afternoon," May 23, 2007.
    
    
  • Read CPR scholar Joseph Feller's op-ed on why the Supreme "Court must conclude that global warming gases are a real danger," published in the December 26, 2006 Arizona Daily Star.
    
    
  • Bush Administration efforts to relax ozone regulations and cut funding for state grants for pollution inspectors are taking a toll on the quality of the air Americans breathe. In a joint report with the Center for American Progress, CPR's Rena Steinzor and Margaret Helen Clune document the resulting shortage of inspectors in 10 of the nation's 11 most populous states. In each of the states more than half of the population -- in New Jersey the entire population -- lives in counties that fail EPA's air quality standards. Read the report, "Paper Tigers and Killer Air: How Weak Enforcement Leaves Communities Vulnerable to Smog," and the news release.
    
    
  • The Clean Air Act Contains precise requirements designed to improve air quality in regions of the country where air quality is currently worse than the health-based federal air quality standards. When such non-attainment areas fail to meet statutory deadlines, the law provides that those areas be "bumped-up" to a tougher set of requirements so that the health-based standards can be achieved. The EPA is encouraging a legislative change to weaken this bump-up requirement. Read CPR President Tom McGarity's January 18, 2003 Op-ed in the Houston Chronicle.
    
    
  • As many as 1 in 12 women of child-bearing age in the United States have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. CPR works to strengthen existing restrictions on mercury pollution by power plants, chlor-alkali plants, and others.
    
    
    • Read Rena Steinzor's February 21, 2008 op-ed in the Baltimore Sun on why a federal court decision rejecting the Bush Administration's cap-and-trade approach to mercury pollution violates the law.
      
      
    • Read Catherine O'Neill's October 31, 2007 op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Tuna, with a side of mercury." In it, she notes the conflicting advice to expectant mothers from seemingly reliable sources about fish consumption and mercury pollution, and argues that the real solution is to stop burdening women with the challenge of avoiding such risks, and instead burden polluters with the responsibility of preventing them.
      
      
    • Read Catherine O'Neill's 1/3/05 comments to EPA on its mercury pollution credit-trading proposal, or her 11/17/04 testimony to the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs of the House Government Reform Committee. Or read her report on mercury pollution's effect on minorities in the Upper Great Lakes region.
      
      
    • Rena Steinzor and Lisa Heinzerling's article in the April 2004 Environmental Law Reporter (posted by permission).
      
      
    • January 13, 2003 Op-Ed on Trading Program for Mercury in the Daytona Beach News-Journal by Rena Steinzor
      
      
    • Read Lisa Heinzerling and Rena Steinzor's op-eds for the Center for American Progress website on mercury pollution, and White House efforts to doctor the science supporting regulation of mercury.
      
      
  • The Bush Administration's New Source Review policy would permit heavily polluting power plants to evade Clean Air Act requirements to clean up their emissions as they upgrade their capacity. Read "'Grandfathered' Air Pollution Sources and Pollution Control: New Source Review Under the Clean Air Act," by Victor B. Flatt and Kim Diana Connolly, CPR White Paper 504, published March 2005.
    
    
• EPA Status.
  
  A proposal to elevate EPA to Cabinet status could result in degrading the Agency's mission and effectiveness.
  
  
  • Read Rena Steinzor's June 6, 2003 testimony on proposals to elevate EPA to Cabinet status. And read CPR's news release.
    
    
• Administration challenges to state environmental regulation.
  
  On a range of fronts, the Bush Administration has worked to weaken federal environmental standards, letting a variety of industries off the hook for cleaning up pollution they have caused. And at the price of sacrificing principles of federalism, the Administration has recently sided with industry in efforts to undercut California environmental regulations, which are often tougher than federal standards.
  
  
  • August 18, 2003 op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle by Cliff Rechtschaffen.
    
    
• Natural Resources, Wildlife and Nature.
  
  The Bush Administration’s approach to natural resources, wildlife, and nature are often little more than a giveaway to polluting industries. CPR works to protect precious natural resources from destruction and misuse.
  
  
  • Read CPR Member Scholar Bill Buzbee's April 16, 2008 testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on the Rapanos and SWANCC decisions and the Clean Water Restoration Act. Read the news release.
    
    
  • Read Holly Doremus's January 18, 2008 article in Slate Magazine on listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
    
    
  • Read Squandering Public Resources, by Alyson Flournoy, Margaret Clune Giblin and Matt Shudtz's September 2007 report on the government's failed stewardship of public lands.
    
    
  • Read William Buzbee's August 1, 2006 testimony before the Fisheries, Wildlife and Water subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Professor Buzbee's topic: the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in the Rapanos case for efforts to protect America's waterways from polluters.
    
    
  • Read Alyson Flournoy, Robert L. Glicksman, and Margaret Clune's June 2005 white paper on the Bush Administration's regulatory sell-out of the national forests. Read the news release.
    
    
  • Read Joseph Feller's, "In Bush Grazing Decision, Politics, Secrecy Win Again," a description of Administration suppression of a damning environmental impact statement assessing the harm from a Bureau of Land Management grazing policy, published August 18 on the websites of the Center for American Progress and AlterNet.
    
    
  • Read Joseph Feller's article, "The BLM’s Proposed New Grazing Regulations: Serving the Most Special Interest," posted by permission of the Journal of Land, Resources and Environmental Law, from the Journal's Vol. 24 No. 2, 2004.
    
    
  • Read Alyson Flournoy’s "Dangerous Illusions about Wetlands," as published on the Center for American Progress website on May 19, 2004.
    
    
• Hurricane Katrina
  
  The devastation of Hurricane Katrina, coupled with the government's sluggish response to the disaster, laid bare a number of significant policy failings of the past few decades.
  
  
  • Read Robert Verchick's op-ed on the state of New Orleans on the one-year anniversary of Katrina: "What's Next," published by the Birmingham News on August 27, 2006, "New Orleans is slowly recovering from storm's devastation," published by the Mobile Press Register on August 27, 2006, and "New Orleans still suffering from inaction," published August 28, 2006 by the Springfield (MO) News-Leader.
    
    
  • Read the agenda to "Katrina Consequences: What Has the Government Learned," a conference in New Orleans on the one-year anniversary of Katrina, jointly sponsored by CPR and the Loyola College of Law.
    
    
  • Read Robert RM Verchick's February 7, 2006 op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, "A Federal Obligation," on the Bush Administration's approach to rebuilding New Orleans.
    
    
  • Read CPR's "Unnatural Disaster: The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," by Member Scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform, White Paper 512, September 2005. The report describes the failed environmental, energy, and disaster prevention and management policies that exacerbated Katrina's damage, leading to a breathtaking example of environmental injustice. Or read the executive summary to "Unnatural Disaster."
    
    
  • Read CPR's special report, "Broken Levees: Why They Failed," debunking right-wing claims that a 1970s lawsuit over the Army Corps of Engineers failure to conduct a credible environmental impact assessment, filed by New Orleans community groups and an environmental organization, caused the flooding of New Orleans.
    
    
  • Read CPR board member Robert RM Verchick's September 29, 2005 testimony before the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, "Hurricane Katrina: Assessing the Present Environmental Status."
    
    
  • Read CPR board member Robert RM Verchick's November 17, 2005 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works on how preliminary findings on the failure of the levees should be incorporated into future plans for hurricane protection.